


Neither Friend, Nor Foe.

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Dark Will, M/M, Strangulation, Twisted love, Will lives out his Fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1528340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone requested: Will finally acting on his fantasy about "killing" Hannibal. (Hannibal encouraging it). I did my best to fulfill that!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neither Friend, Nor Foe.

"Perhaps we should indulge you then." Hannibal’s voice is as steady as ever, as though he is suggesting nothing more than a thought exercise to pass a moment, and Will snorts.

"You’d like me to…indulge in my fantasy of killing you, Doctor?” The words are incredulous, a dark taint of humor to them. He doesn’t actually think Hannibal is suggesting he attempt to kill him, and yet, for a heartbeat, he allows himself to believe it, breath hitching, pulse racing. Could he do it? Play it out the way his mind does for him night after night, if Hannibal bared his neck for him, could his fingers squeeze the air from his body? “That seems unlike you. It would being an end to our sessions, for one.” He tries to hide the way his imagination is starting to infect him, the softness of Hannibal’s throat under his grip, the bruises blossoming on tanned skin as he presses harder. 

"Giving physicality to desire can be of use." Hannibal’s eyes are brighter than usual, as they often are when they broach this topic, but there’s a strange hunger lighting them now. "It can illuminate the difference between how something feels in fantasy and how it might feel in reality." Their eyes meet, the gravity of Hannibal’s gaze pulling Will’s to it. "An important distinction that is easily forgotten…when one thinks they truly want something." 

There’s a pause, as though Hannibal waits to be corrected, for Will to tell him that he really and truly knows what he wants, that he can tell fantasy from reality. But thanks to the man himself, there’s no truth to that, and they’ve promised not to lie. Will rises from his chair silently, ignoring the spark of triumph that brushes across Hannibal, tilting his head in consideration. “And you think I’ll stop?” The words are low and curl around them both. “Once I have my hands around your neck?” 

Hannibal stands himself, engages in the ceremony of removing his jacket, careful, quiet, motions that end with their eyes locking again. “I trust that you will.” He says simply and it shouldn’t make Will’s stomach lurch, but it does, that there’s only sincerity in the words. An uncomfortable sensation fills him, as though it is he who is the bad friend, slowly eats away at somewhere deep, roiling inside of his stomach. Hannibal, the bastard that he is, turns his head, bowing it for a moment, and the sensation grows. But when he looks back up, all the masks have been removed from his eyes and the creature that stares at Will has him falling into action before he can stop himself. 

Hannibal doesn’t fight him as he goes flying into his form, knocking them both over. In his mind, he is on auto-play, the dreams that haunt him taking over as he moves. In the fantasy, Hannibal is talking, trying to talk, but he silences him with a punch to his cheek, his skin connects with bone, and then again, for Bev, for Abigail, their shadows dance around him. Hannibal shifts and morphs into darkness beneath Will. Even as he pins Hannibal to the floor the other evolves, elongates, antlers dripping black with blood rising from his skull. Will grabs onto them as they form, the impulse to break them overpowering. His mind presents him with thick bone that he aims to crush, but his fingers only whisper to him of soft hair tangled between them. He can sense the reality on the outskirts, pounding at the door of his mind, but the dream rushes loud in his ears. There is a gasp of pain and the antlers are powder in his fingers. The stag is looking up at him now, glassy, black, eyes, fathomless and empty boring from the skull. But without warning, the image blurs and Hannibal’s is twinned next to it, cut lip, bruises blossoming around eyes that water with pain, there’s a puffy redness near the top of his forehead, fingermarks and indentations of nails all over his face. Will pauses for a moment, but then the images shake and merge back together and the darkness sets in around him once more. The stag-man does not bleed, is blood, is made of the blood of its victims, it doesn’t cry or hurt or even realize that Will is breaking it, a punch lands here, a slap there, his fingers dig in to gather a chunk of the blackness and toss it to the multiplying shades, Georgia, Marissa. The monster does not hurt, the thought rips savagely through Will, but it can die.

No sooner do his fingers find the expanse of its throat though, and there’s a flash of separation again, the sudden rays of light clearing through the darkness almost painful. His eyes try to squint against them, to shut them out. In the darkness everything is clear, he can see the enemy, knows what he must do to destroy it, but here, his human hands around Hannibal’s fragile throat, around the expanse that is little but easily torn membranes of cells, that belongs to a living body, everything is different. And it’s not the body of some nightmare beast, but of Hannibal, Hannibal who is not his friend, nor, exactly, his enemy. Hannibal, whom, he can suddenly see clearly, even as his fingers still choke, is so close to the monster, but is kept just, just, separate by one thread of humanity. One little string that should of been meaningless to him but isn’t, that will hang him, and he lets it. Will hates him for that realization, for making him this tie, for taking away his ability to despise him wholly. 

"I hate you." He tells him as the darkness ebbs and flows away, his fingers tightening now, of their own accord, filling him with black ache to his ears. Hannibal, and no one else, chokes underneath him now, lips parted, spluttering sounds echoing around the room. His face is a bloody mess, one big bruise, his hair tangled and wild, pulled every direction. But it’s the eyes that Will fixates on, the admiration that muddles them, the betrayal that echos too loudly, the wish for Will to understand. He doesn’t…and he does. 

With a last squeeze he pulls away, only to lean in again, mouth capturing Hannibal’s gasps as his throat coughs for air, blood staining their lips. He kisses him long and rough, until the other whimpers underneath him for want of air and he draws away. 

"I won’t kill you." He tells Hannibal as he rises from the floor. "You were right, not nearly as satisfying as in my dreams." His fingers clench into fists as he forces himself to turn his back on Hannibal, to take measured steps out of the room. He doesn’t want Hannibal to understand how much this affects him as well, twists his heart and stops his breath. "I think I’ll make you live without me instead. Send you to jail and go somewhere far. I think." He pauses, his lips twisting up. "I think for you, for the creature _you_ are, that would be more fitting than death. Maybe by the time years have passed, you’ll be only him and then I’ll watch the air flow out of your body.”

"Will - " Hannibal’s voice is raw and wrecked, but it’s three steps to the door, two, one. 

It slams loudly in response.


End file.
